230 Pickering on the Language and Inhabitants 
a time ; and, if from exhaustion or any other cause the required task 
was not performed, the food was withheld altogether. But farther 
misfortunes awaited them. 
After having been on the island about four months, a violent storm 
nearly swept away the whole growth of nut-trees, and injured the 
fruit on those which had withstood the blast; in addition to which, 
the low grounds, where they raised the kore? root, were mostly 
filled with sand; and “famine stared them in the face.” * 
The natives ascribed this misfortune to the displeasure of their 
god, and resorted to such means as they imagined would appease 
him. At the same time they employed their captives, for months, 
in carrying on their shoulders and in their arms pieces of coral rock, 
in order to make a sort of sea-wall to prevent the waves from 
washing away the trees; and this labor was performed by the cap- 
tives under a burning tropical sun, without having any clothing, 
and after they had been “reduced to nothing but skin and bones.” + 
Nor was this the end of their sufferings. The natives insisted 
upon tattooing them, and they were compelled to submit to this 
painful operation, which, in that hot climate, was also attended with 
danger; for it caused such an inflammation, that only a portion could 
be done at one time; and, as fast as the inflammation subsided, other 
portions were successively operated upon, till the whole body was 
covered; their faces as well as bodies would have been tattooed, 
had they not resisted, and threatened to submit to death rather than 
to suffer it. Besides this operation, they were obliged to pluck all 
the hair from their bodies, and to pluck their beards about every 
ten days, which proved excessively painful, as at every successive 
operation, according to their account, the beard grew out harder and 
stiffer. t 
* Holden’s Narrative, p. 99. + Ibid. p. 100. { Ibid. p. 103. 
